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Following the improvement in the July shipments, engineering exporters are now banking on the battered rupee.

"July export performance was the best in the four-month period since April even though the trend is still negative at 1.38 per cent contraction. We expect things to improve in the coming months with the rupee depreciation giving us some advantage...," Engineering Export Promotion Council chairman Aman Chadha said in a statement.

The sharp depreciation of the rupee, which has lost close to 20 per cent this fiscal, hasn't been able to completely reverse the negative trend in engineering exports, though the pace of decline in exports came down from a high of 9.52 per cent in April to 1.38 per cent in July.

The industry body said out of the 11 regions, shipments to seven regions declined in the April-July period for which the overall trend has been negative 5.77 per cent with total consignments of USD 18.03 billion for the four months against USD 19.14 billion in the comparable period previous fiscal.

"The European Union, North America, Africa and Asean have shown decline, reflecting the worldwide slowdown in the industrial and engineering production.

"For instance, the EU which accounts for 18.62 per cent of the country's total engineering exports registered a drop of 8.73 per cent during April-July period and Africa with 14.16 per cent share a decline of 7.71 per cent," Chadha said.

In terms of segments, exports of iron ore and steel products, non-ferrous metals, and products such as automobile components, continued considerable drop in shipments, Chadha said.